Barack Obama, Ammo Salesman

It isn’t just AR-15s that are flying off the shelves. Shooters are also starting to experience a serious shortage of ammunition. This is partly because President Obama is using up so much ammo. He sprang a secret on us in an interview with New Republic, finally letting the cat out of the bag after all these years: Obama says he goes skeet shooting at Camp David “all the time.” Really? Who knew? I thought he just played basketball, golfed and smoked cigarettes. The folks at Twitchy are skeptical, but I take Obama at his word. His constant skeet shooting is probably putting a serious dent in the worldwide ammo supply.

Everywhere you go, people are stocking up on ammunition out of concern for what the Democrats might legislate in Washington and in various state capitals. Donald Douglas has a nice report on his visit to the Orange County Gun Show in Costa Mesa, California over at American Power. His post includes some good photos; I liked this sign:

But this was the picture that really struck me: the line to get into the ammunition building:

There is something seriously wrong when Americans have to stand in line to buy ammo. But I can confirm that the shortage is spreading rapidly. My son and I went shooting at the Gander Mountain Store in Lakeville, our usual haunt. I was running a little low on ammunition and thought I would pick up a box of 9 mm ammo on the way in. Forget it. Not a single 9 mm bullet in the store. No 22LR either, if you can imagine that. So Eric and I had to cut our shooting a little short, since we ran out of ammo. When we were done I tried the Fleet Farm across the highway, too: not a single 9 mm or 22LR bullet to be had. The people at Gander said that the ammunition manufacturers have given varying dates when they think they can ship more product. Some will be coming as early as next month; in other cases, they are looking at a 12-month delay before they can fill existing orders.

So, in our effort to be scrupulously fair to President Obama, we can no longer say that his policies have uniformly been catastrophic for the economy. No: from now on, we must admit that he has been an unprecedented boon to manufacturers of firearms and ammunition. Maybe someday Obama will tout this as his legacy, much as Bill Clinton claimed welfare reform as his finest achievement.